Drones struck Nizhnekamsk, a petrochemical city in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, on Monday morning. Thirteen people were killed. The city lies roughly 900 kilometres east of Moscow and more than a thousand from the Ukrainian border. It was the most-read story in Russia on Monday, and the second most-read on the BBC in Britain, and the two accounts do not contain the same facts.
The head of Tatarstan's press service said the strike hit both industrial and civilian sites. Seventy-eight people sought medical help, twenty-five were admitted, and two were in a serious condition. The injured count never settled: the BBC reported seventy-five, wire copy circulating the same day said thirty-nine. Only the death toll held at thirteen. Mourning was declared across the republic, and Russia's Investigative Committee opened a case on terrorism charges.
Nizhnekamsk mayor Radmir Belyaev was posting on Telegram while it was still happening. At 8:37 Moscow time he described a "massed raid" in progress against industrial and civilian sites. Twelve minutes later he announced the mourning. By 9:07 he was reporting extra medical teams dispatched from Naberezhnye Chelny. The drone threat for Nizhnekamsk and four neighbouring towns was lifted around 9:11.
The detail Russian outlets returned to was a five-year-old girl who had been asleep on a balcony. Tatarstan's health minister, Almir Abashev, said she died before an ambulance reached her. Rustam Minnikhanov, the republic's head, told reporters that a tree had taken part of the impact and that the building would otherwise have been hit harder. "Very great indignation," he said, "that besides our industrial sites there was an attack on peaceful residents, on civilian sites."
Why it is on the board
It reached the board on two lenses. It was the second most-read item on Kommersant's own ranking page on Monday, and RTVI's news channel led its daily video with it. In Britain the same event was the second most-read story on the BBC that day.
Kommersant's most-read piece is a chronology of the official response: which press service said what, at which minute, which hotline opened, when the threat was called off. RIA's is about the girl on the balcony. The BBC's opens with Ukraine's armed forces saying they hit Tatneft's TANECO refinery, gives the distance from the border, and reports that the Uzbek consulate in Tatarstan counted seven of its citizens among the dead. Tajikistan's foreign ministry said one of its citizens was killed as well, and RIA put nine of the thirteen in a hostel at the time.
Sourced from Kommersant, RIA Novosti and the BBC. The injured count differed across reports on the day and is given here as each source stated it.